I usually connect to You Tube to find whatever song has been running through my head since the early morning. Today, as I looked up the song, Praise Adonai, I got distracted by the comments running below the song. There was a debate going on about whether or not we should be calling God by the various names revealed in His Word; i.e. Jehovah, Yahwah, Adonay, Elohim, etc.

I am paraphrasing a comment on You Tube which said, “How would you like people to call you Billy when your name is really Bob?” The book,  ”Praying the Names of God” lists the various names with which God has been revealed to His people. Sometimes God has revealed the name to man, and sometimes man has revealed a name of God through a need met. The names listed in the book above are the character and personality of our never changing God. Because of the enemy’s deceitfulness though, we tend to get confused and sometimes call God a name He is not. What do I mean?

As I have talked with God, studied and applied His Word, He has shown that through our religious sounding conversations and consolations for each other, we have been calling Him what He is not. For example, the name Yahweh Shalom (the Lord is peace) reveals the very nature of God. He doesn’t just give us peace, He IS peace. God did not and does not “just do”, He IS what He does.  He didn’t just provided salvation through His Son, He IS salvation. God does not just provide healing, He IS health and restoration. He doesn’t just make “a way”, He IS the way. He doesn’t just reveal truth, He IS the truth. All these names listed in the book are revealed in a relationship context.

For so long we have been trained in the mentality that if we do not possess what God provides then it must that God doesn’t want that for us. Maybe the answer is that we have been debating for so long that we have forgotten to get aquainted with and build a relationship with the One who IS. If someone says to me that God wants them to be sick so He can work through them, then I must find God’s revealing name, the Lord my sickness, in His Word. If I am to be without salvation, I must find God’s revealing name, the Lord my damnation, in His Word. If I am to be in lack, then I must find God’s revealing name, the Lord my poverty, in the Word. If I am to walk in fear and doubt, I must find His revealing name, the Lord my tormentor, in His Word.

God sent His perfect Word to be among us and to demonstrate who and what He IS. And God, gave him the name above ALL names that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that HE IS LORD. Do we know the One who IS life abundant or do we know about abundant life? Knowing God in the relationship of Life Abundant through Jesus Christ, we receive what He IS through a relationship with God, Jehovah, Yahweh, in the flesh. Smith Wigglesworth talks about “being in the nature of God’, but you can’t be in His nature if you don’t know what His nature is. You can’t be in effective worship ministry if you don’t know the God of worship. You can’t be in effective healing ministry if you don’t know God who is my healer. You can’t be in effective counseling ministry if you don’t know God who is the Mighty Counselor.

Don’t sit around debating God’s revealed names. Get in your closet and spend time with the One who IS and you will find that whatever ministry God has brought you to will be most effective because HE IS.